On September 7th, Nordic Startup Awards held its Finnish National Finale, an event hosted by ArcticStartup and Haaga-Helia StartUp School honouring the best of Finland's startup ecosystem in various categories. Kim Väisänen was invited as a member of the awards jury.

The winners were selected by a panel of judges, each with proven experience and skill in recognising the potential of a startup. These choices were based upon the nominee's quality and impact within their industry or field. Hence, you could consider the winners some of the hottest startups (incubators and investors) in Finland right now.

The Finnish winners of the Nordic Startup Awards 2017 are:

Best Accelerator Program: Startup Sauna, Espoo-based accelerator for top notch tech teams focused on business development and finding the right go-to-market strategy and product-market fit.

Best Bootstrapped: Vainu.io, data-driven sales prospecting platform for B2B sales professionals.

Best Coworking Space: Maria01, is a startup campus located in central Helsinki at a former Maria hospital.

Best FinTech Startup: Moni, is the hub that transforms the financial industry into a consumer-driven business.

Best FoodTech Startup: Wolt, a mobile app that gives people a fast and simple way to handle physical-world payments on their mobile phone, enabling them to skip production queues and waiting in restaurants, bars and cafes.

Best Health/Lifestyle Startup: Oura, wellness ring and health tracking app.

Best IoT Startup: Sense of Intelligence, tech company specialized on pet well-being.

Best Newcomer: ResQ Club, food rescuing company.
Read More: Finnish startup ResQ Club is giving restaurants and customers a win-win opportunity to stop food waste

Best Social Impact Startup: ResQ Club, food rescuing company.

Best Startup Ecosystem Initiative: Polar Bear Pitching, Oulu-based pitching competition held in a hole of ice.

Founder of the Year: Miki Kuusi, CEO and co-founder of the Helsinki-based tech company Wolt. Previously, Miki ran Slush as co-founder & CEO and has been listed as #32 on Wired’s top technology influencers in Europe for 2015.

Investor of the Year: Lifeline Ventures, company investing in health, games, web and tech. They invested in companies like Ambronite, Better Doctor, Digital Workforce, Enevo, Iceye and much more. Lifeline Ventures mostly invests in early-stage companies.

Startup of the Year: Next Games, a publicly listed mobile game developer and publisher specializing in games based on entertainment franchises, such as movies, TV series or books.

Read the original story here: http://nordic.businessinsider.com/these-finnish-startups-were-best-in-class-in-2017-2017-9/